Lunch seminar with Virginia Passalacqua
(Explaining the Dearth of) Racial Discrimination Litigation in EU Law
In the early 2000s, the EU equipped itself with strong anti-discrimination legislation. The so-called Equality Directives (2000/43 and 2000/78), introduced in the Member States a relatively broad and legally robust set of legislative measures intended to combat discrimination, with particularly strong and extensive measures against race discrimination. However, litigation coming from national courts to the Court of Justice under these two Directives has varied quite a bit, depending on the grounds of discrimination. The largest number of cases has dealt with discrimination based on age, with only a small number of cases raising issues of race discrimination. This is rather puzzling given the pervasive racial discrimination within most countries of the European Union and the fact that the prohibition of race discrimination is broad in scope under EU law. This study posits that to understand patterns of EU litigation, we need first to analyze litigation before domestic courts. Relying on data on anti-discrimination litigation before the national courts of selected Member States, the study explores whether the paucity of EU litigation reflects low litigation rates at the national level. On the contrary, in the case of relatively higher levels of racial discrimination litigation before domestic courts, we ask whether the low number of EU preliminary references requested or made reflects a preference for other remedies or instruments in national and international law, and if so why this might be.
Speaker bio
Virginia Passalacqua is an expert in EU law, migration, and legal mobilization, which she investigates with a law-in-context perspective.
Virginia is currently working on her book “Mobilizing EU Justice”, where she investigates why civil society actors engage in EU litigation for migrant rights in some countries but not in others. In the book, she uncovers the conditions under which civil society actors use EU litigation for migrant rights and the obstacles that hamper mobilization via the Court of Justice of the EU.
Virginia holds a degree in law (cum laude) from the University of Bologna and a Ph.D. in EU law from the European University Institute, where she worked under the supervision of Professor Bruno de Witte. Her dissertation was awarded the Mauro Cappelletti Prize for the Best EUI Thesis in Comparative Law and her paper, "Altruism, Euro-Expertise and Open EU Legal Opportunity Structure: Empirical Insights on Legal Mobilization Before the CJEU in the Migration Field" was awarded the Ius Commune Prize 2020.
Virginia has recently joined the University of Turin where she works as an Assistant Professor. Previously she was an Emile Noël Fellow at NYU, a Postdoctoral Fellow at Utrecht University and at Collegio Carlo Alberto, and an Academic Fellow at Bocconi University. She held visiting positions at the London School of Economics and at Oxford University.
Meeting ID: 681 5920 0466
Passcode: 689300